Most of the high school students lined up outside The Old Globe’s audition hall on May 4 had Broadway dreams, but Barbara Padilla’s feet were on solid ground.

The Chula Vista High senior — who auditioned with a stirring speech by Lady Macbeth — said she’s hedging her bets. She’ll study engineering next fall at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. That’s not far from Manhattan by train, but Padilla, 17, said she knows how long the odds are for aspiring actors.

Padilla was one of 130 young hopefuls who took part in preliminary auditions May 4-5 for the 2013 Globe Honors and The Road to the Jimmy Awards competition. Twenty-four finalists will move on to the finals round May 20, a public performance hosted by Channel 8 weekend anchor Marcella Lee.

Co-sponsored by the Globe and Broadway/San Diego-A Nederlander Presentation, the Honors awards $1,000 scholarships to the male and female winners in the categories of musical theater, spoken theater and lead performance in a musical, as well as one technical theater finalist. Most winners will move on to an L.A. theater workshop, but the lead performance winners get a free trip to New York to compete July 1 in the National High School Musical Theatre Awards (or the Jimmy Awards, named for producer James Nederlander).

Twice in the past three years, the Globe Honors’ female winner ended up in the top three at the Jimmys, including last year’s finalist Nicolette Burton of Ramona, who graduated last spring from Canyon Crest Academy in Carmel Valley.

“It was the best experience of my entire life,” said Burton, 18, who’s now studying musical theater at Montclair State University in New Jersey. “It definitely helped me prepare, and it gave me the drive and confidence I need. I learned how many people want this life and I need to work really hard if I’m going to pursue it.”

Launched just five years ago with a dozen students, the Globe Honors now draws teens from 30 San Diego-area high schools. Globe Education Director Roberta Wells-Famula said she’s impressed by how the talent improves each year. She chaired the prelim round with fellow Globe education staffer Kim Montelibano Heil and James Vasquez, who directs the Globe’s “Grinch” musical each year. Vasquez said he’s watched many of this year’s auditioners grow up onstage as junior Whos in the “Grinch.”

One former Who is Celia Tedde, a confident 15-year-old sophomore at San Diego Jewish Academy. Although she has performed for years in her father’s show band, Rockola, Tedde said her heart is in theater.

“When I’m onstage, I’m in this other world,” she said. “I forget I’m singing because I’m so connected to the characters I’m playing.”

Simon Benichou, a 16-year-old student at the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts, said he enjoys theater and auditions, but he’s better at computer science. “Being around other performers has its pluses and minuses. I’m not as good as some others, but it also motivates me to strive to be the best I can.”

Chula Vista High senior Ellen Maley, 18, competed in both the musical and spoken theater categories, and whooped with relief as she left the audition room. But rather than theater, Maley will be double-majoring in Spanish and managerial communication at Point Loma Nazarene University next fall.

“I can’t see myself doing theater as a career. It’s just not practical,” she said.

For her audition, Becca Myers, a 17-year-old junior at High Tech High, belted out solos from “Funny Girl” and “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.” Myers said she once dreamed of being a veterinarian but knows now that theater is where she belongs. “When I’m onstage,” she said, “I feel alive.”